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COMMANDERY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



WAR PAPER 85. 



9 Personal episode o| tl^e pirst 
Stoqenriari Raid. 






Military ©vdiQi^ of \\}e Iso^giI be^ion 



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COHfflANDEI^Y OF THE DI^TI(I(3T OF COLnfflBIA. 



WAR PAPERS. 
85 

^ ^ersoqal episode o| \\}^ [^irst ^toqernaq f^aid. 

BY 

Companion 

FREDERICK W. MITCHELL, 

Captain U. S. Volunteers. 

READ AT THE STATED MEETING OF DECEMBER 6, 1911. 



PUBLICATION DIRECTED BY THE LITERARY COMMITTEE UNDER AUTHORITY 
OF ORDER OF THE COMMANDERY. 






AP^raoital Eplsabenf %iFtrat ^tuttFUtan Sat^. 



Foreword. 



"Where then, General?" 

"God only knows," answered vStoneman. "If you succeed 
in getting down the Peninsula, you had better continue on, if 
possible, and report to Gen. Rufus King at Yorktown. It will 
be^a tough' proposition at best, and I fear you won't make the 
trip without some pretty hard fighting." 

I was acting as Colonel Davis' aide, 12th Illinois Cavalry, 
and could not help hearing their conversation as they stood 
by our camp fire about 3 A. M. on that beautiful May morning 
in 1863. 

Ten minutes later, "boots and saddles" sounded, and then 
commenced our personal participation in what is known in 
history as the first vStoneman raid, very successful so far as our 
immediate forces were concerned, but fatally lacking in the 
accomplishment of what the commanding general of the Army 
of the Potomac had planned and expected. 

General Lee at Gettysburg, and General Hooker at Chan- 
cellorsville, both appear t6 have laid their plans as if the defeat 
of the opposing army was a foregone conclusion, giving their 
splendid cavalry forces other work to do, instead of having them 
where the fighting was, to be used in their very time of need. 

We kno\v" now that Hooker fully expected to whip Lee at 
Chancellorsville and drive his routed columns toward Richmond. 
vSo Stoneman was directed to detach his splendidly mounted and 
equipped flying squadrons, ride around the rebel army, destroy- 
ing all lines of communication and doing all the damage possible. 



and then pursue the demoralized enemy, even to the gates of 

their capital. We know now that Hooker did not win, did not 

drive back the enemy, and that all the work and destruction 

by the cavalry counted for naught. 

vStoneman reported that his part of the force was completely 

exhausted by their two days and nights in the saddle. Our 

regiment and, I presume, Kilpatrick's, were over twice as long 

without sleep or rest, and, because thereof, hangs this o'er true 

tale. 

Of all regrets of the prison pen, 

The greatest is this, "It might have been." 

Taken prisoner on the Stoneman raid near Richmond, Va., 
while acting as aide to my colonel, I had been transferred by my 
captors to a detachment of Stuart's cavalry, temporarily camped 
at a little station on the railroad not many miles from the rebel 
capital. No one appeared to take any notice of me as I seated 
myself rather disconsolately upon an old stump. How unreal 
it all seemed! A few days ago I had been in command of a 
fine body of men, my own master, ready, as I believed, if need 
be, to do or to die, and with a heart for any fate. We had 
represented the very successful part of Stoneman's very un- 
successful raid. Our rapid dash through the rebel country had 
taken the people entirely by surprise, and our own part, as 
General Stoneman stated later, had been well done. 

Day after day, with but little resistance, horses had been 
captured, bridges, warehouses, and carloads of provisions and 
clothing had been burned or otherwise destroyed, and the end 
of our raid seemed almost in sight. But six days and nights 
in the saddle, with but slight rest or sleep, had exhausted the 
little command, and those of the men who had not been for- 
tunate enough to capture fresh horses were wearily struggling 
along on foot, liable at any moment to be captured by the 
citizen soldiery who were gathering in squads from all sides. 



I had been directed to ride back several miles to encourage 
and hasten up the men, but, going too far and getting away 
from the main road, found myself suddenly confronted by a 
hostile party. It was hardly a case for argument as four double- 
barreled shotguns at full cock and within ten paces were, to me, 
a perfectly satisfactory reason why I should temporarily, at 
least, lose all interest in the further prosecution of the war. 
My later attempts at escape had proved futile, and for the 
latter twenty-four hours I had given my parole to make no 
further effort. My captors had been very kind-hearted, and 
there were conclusive proofs that the country was now fully 
aroused and greatly enraged, and that, even if I escaped from 
them, I would undoubtedly be recaptured by men who would 
not treat me so leniently. Indeed, several times my captors 
had stood between me and personal violence from other parties 
that we met. On this, the evening of the fourth day, I had 
been delivered over to the authorities at their nearest camp, 
had bade a rather sorrowful good-bye to my whilom guardians, 
and now asked myself what caused this desperate feeling of 
mingled homesickness and depression, and why should even a 
rebel desire to prevent my telegraphing to the folks at home 
that at least I was alive and well, if not altogether happy. 
Instead of the letters U. S. A. representing the power and the 
majesty of our government and our army with its background 
of the loyal blue, the letters C. S. A., representing all we had 
learned to condemn and loathe, on its background of the hated 
gray, were everywhere in evidence, on wagons, blankets, can- 
teens, haversacks, while from a staff in front of the tents floated 
the Stars and Bars instead of dear Old Glory, never so loved 
and longed for as then. But the camp was the same, and I 
could almost imd,gine that full right and power still remained 
to me to have these troopers fall in and mount and ride, whenever 
and wherever I might so command. 



There were the horses standing at the picket hne, the group 
of men preparing their supper around the Httle camp fire, the 
wagons, bags of grain and bales of hay, everything just as for 
the past two years I had known them and seen them and hved 
as a part of them. The horses were perhaps more scrubby, 
the men certainly more lank and more sallow, the wagons and 
equipments more shabby and dirtier than of yore, but as the 
evening shadows grew longer and the daylight faded, it was 
still the same old typical cavalry camp. 

Just then a young soldier, about my age and of somewhat 
slighter build, detached himself from a group near one of their 
camp fires and, lounging towards me, peered into my face and 
said with a southern drawl, "Well, I thought my turn would 
come some day; you appear to 'be pretty well put up, and 
I don't know that I can lick you, but you can bank your last 
greenback I'm going to try mighty hard." He didn't look 
to be under the influence of liquor, and as I had just learned 
that whiskey was selling at $i a drink, I didn't believe he was, 
and I simply sat still and looked at him without answering. 

"Come," he said impatiently, "take off your coat; I ain't 
going to be as mean as you were and pitch on you without 
giving you some show; get up here or I'll punch your face off. " 
A few of his comrades had meanwhile gathered around and 
were laughing and chaffing him. 

"My friend, " I said, still without moving, "I was just realiz- 
ing how disgusted I was with life generally at being a prisoner, 
and if it will afford you and the other boys any especial satis- 
faction, I don't know that I object to a little scrap. I think if, 
as you say, I licked you once, I shall have no trouble to do it 
again. The whole matter, however, strikes me as rather 
ridiculous. I have certainly never met you before." 

"The hell you say," answered my aggressive rebel friend. 
"When I was a prisoner at Fredericksburg a year ago and you 



were in command of the Provost Guard, because I was too 
drunk to obey you and march as you ordered, didn't you get 
down off your horse and give me the cussedest hammering I 
ever got? Come, get up, if you ain't too much of a coward!" 

"Stop that!" I said, as I jumped to my feet, "don't use 
that word again, or, with the boys to give us fair play, we'll 
quickly decide that part of the discussion. But I want simply 
to say to your comrades that neither I nor my regiment had 
ever seen Fredericksburg at that time, or had hardly heard 
of the town, nor was I an officer till the following winter. Be- 
sides, a Yankee officer in charge of a Provost Guard isn't in the 
habit of dismounting and fighting with a drunken prisoner." 

"Oh, come oft', Sam," said a big, good-natured looking ser- 
geant, "you were too drunk that evening to recognize any one. 
You've often told how the Yankees who got hold of you first 
had a lot of liquor with them and gave you all you could drink. 
You can't fight this man anyhow. He's our prisoner, and 
you'd get all of us in a nice scrape. " 

"I know I was awful drunk, but this Yank does certainly 
look like the one who gave me my licking. If he says he wasn't 
there, why I reckon he knows. He seems willing to fight, fast 
enough, so it wouldn't be fair to call him a coward again," 
and Sam permitted himself to be led away. 

And to this day I have remained in ignorance who the other 
fellow was who looked like me, or for whose sake I had been so 
nearly sacrificed upon the altar of vicarious atonement. 

Late on the following afternoon I was taken by a small squad 
to a camp about twenty miles south of Fredericksburg, and 
perhaps twice that distance north of Richmond. I had been 
cut oft" from all communication with the main army for over a 
week, though for the previous few days stragglers and old 
family servants from the rebel army had reported to my captors 
that a tremendous battle had been fought, and though the loss 



8 

had been severe on both sides, the Yankees had been almost 
annihilated and General Hooker killed. As we approached 
Bowling Green we saw a very large crowd coming toward us 
down the railroad, which proved to consist of over twenty-five 
hundred Union prisoners, escorted by a hundred or so rebels, 
the sad results to us of the battle of Chancellorsville. I think 
at that time I was the only cavalry officer present, and as our 
detachment had achieved so pronounced a success, while the 
main army had met such a great reverse, when the boys saw my 
yellow shoulder straps, some very hearty cheers were given. 

We were corralled in a large field, nearly three thousand 
veteran soldiers, and were in excellent physical condition, just 
enough chagrined at defeat and angry at our probable sojourn 
in rebel prisons to do or dare any hazard that promised even a 
shadow of success. Richmond had been drained of almost 
every available soldier for the great conflict just closed, and one 
could safely calculate that hardly a corporal's guard of veterans 
remained in their city. Their entire army was twenty miles 
to the north, seemingly unconcerned as to what was between 
them and their capital, while almost their entire rolling stock 
was crowded with their sick and wounded. We were composed, 
in many instances, of almost entire companies, with nearly a 
full complement of officers and non-commissioned officers. 
As the percentage of officers was indeed very great, within 
ten minutes the entire three thousand soldiers could have been 
as completely organized as if advancing to battle from a camp 
of our own, to overcome not over a hundred and fifty of the 
rebel guard. One of the first things which attracted our atten- 
tion, within about twenty-five rods of the camp, had been a 
pile of captured muskets as big and broad as an immense barn — 
thousands upon thousands; many in perfect condition. To 
several of the officers, none of whom I had of course ever seen, 
I suggested that the word be passed at once to organize small 



squads who should dash simultaneously upon each guard, and 
even though some of us were killed in the struggle, the guards 
would be overwhelmed by sheer brute strength. Then a rush 
for that unguarded pile! Companions, do you realize what 
that would have meant? Three thousand veterans, with 
muskets and ammunition unlimited, lighting mad and deter- 
mined, the wires down, the tracks torn up between their army 
and their capital, a train ready with steam up, and but one 
short hour's ride from Richmond! Our cavalry a few days 
before had done their work very effectually and for many 
miles the track had since been only temporarily relaid. A 
small detail, after we had passed, could have again destroyed 
it and prevented any immediate pursuit. Couriers despatched 
at once to work their way to the Union lines would have borne 
the startling message that Richmond was being occupied by 
thousands of armed Union soldiers, who trusted to their com- 
rades of the grand old Army of the Potomac to prevent any 
large force from being detached from the main rebel army to 
retake the city. Do you say that enough defense could have 
been made by their home guards until the rebel army could 
have overtaken us? Not so; that train would have steamed 
quietly past all fortifications, and into the heart of the city, 
as it did a few hours later, and as conquerors, even if temporary 
ones, we could have swung Old Glory to the breeze and held 
Jeff. Davis and his Cabinet prisoners. Would any of those 
who listen to me not have taken such chances, though he knew 
his life was to have been the forfeit? To my dying day I shall 
never cease to regret that we were not given one brief moment 
more to have at least made the attempt. What might not 
have been accomplished! Three thousand desperate, armed, 
organized soldiers inside the rebel capital, without a word of 
warning to the foe — for that we could have gotten in is as sure 
as fate. Would we not have made history for a while? We 



lO 

might not have ended the war itself one day sooner; but the 
doors of Libby Prison would have been torn open and the poor 
prisoners from within and from Belle Isle been made free, and 
would have proven most valuable recruits. vSurely such things 
to a soldier are worth trying for, and if need be, dying for. 

But the supreme moment passed. Almost before a dozen 
words had been spoken the rebels in command sufficiently 
realized the situation to order the guards to close in upon us and 
compel us to embark at once on the waiting train. Before 
the sun had set, we were all prisoners in Richmond, and the 
story of starvation and death had commenced. 



LS,?''^ °'' CONGRESS 




013 702 001 4 




